Search

Deficiencies of trust in many Latin American countries significantly impede efforts to attain sufficient levels of sustainable, long-term economic growth. This paper discusses the role of trust as seen through the eyes of small entrepreneurs in Latin America. Three tables are discussed that specifically portray the role of trust in society, how entrepreneurs use trust to sustain their enterprises and socioeconomic networks, and the impacts of low trust in economic development in Latin America. This paper confirms what many leading scholars have claimed over the past two decades, that a cultural legacy of fractious civil societies accompanied with disruptive and often-corrupt polities does matter when measuring human progress and economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]